The settlements in southeastern Wisconsin had their lyceums at an early date, and many distinguished public men from the East had occasion to visit this new Yankeeland in the capacity of lecturer. Among them were Horace Greeley, Bayard Taylor, and James Russell Lowell.
Reform movements, however, though usually receiving valuable aid from churches, lyceums, mechanics' institutes, and other permanent organizations of men for public discussion, had a way of creating special organizations to propagate themselves. That was true of the temperance movement, which by the time of the Yankee immigration into Wisconsin was under vigorous headway. Beginning, in serious form, about 1820, the intervening years witnessed the creation of hundreds of local temperance societies in New England and New York, and the federation of these societies into state societies. These central organizations stimulated the movement by sending out lecturers, conducting a newspaper propaganda, and issuing special publications. Some of their tracts are said to have been scattered "like the leaves of autumn," all over New England and New York.
One of these tracts affected the social history of Wisconsin very directly. It is known, traditionally, as "The Ox Discourse," because it was based on Exodus 21:28-29: "If an ox gore a man or woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death." The sermon on this text produced a great sensation and gained many new adherents to the temperance cause. Among these were two brothers, Samuel F. and Henry Phoenix, who were storekeepers in a New York village and sold
